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 |    Not for the faint of art. |
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Complex Numbers A complex number is expressed in the standard form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers and i is defined by i^2 = -1 (that is, i is the square root of -1). For example, 3 + 2i is a complex number. The bi term is often referred to as an imaginary number (though this may be misleading, as it is no more "imaginary" than the symbolic abstractions we know as the "real" numbers). Thus, every complex number has a real part, a, and an imaginary part, bi. Complex numbers are often represented on a graph known as the "complex plane," where the horizontal axis represents the infinity of real numbers, and the vertical axis represents the infinity of imaginary numbers. Thus, each complex number has a unique representation on the complex plane: some closer to real; others, more imaginary. If a = b, the number is equal parts real and imaginary. Very simple transformations applied to numbers in the complex plane can lead to fractal structures of enormous intricacy and astonishing beauty. ![Merit Badge in Quill Award
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| Warning: this one might make you hungry. You're stretching when you have to pull in a word from another language to force alliteration in the headline. But at least that's better than making a cheese pun, which I'll brie trying to avoid here. ‘I hate to dictate to people. I don’t like too many rules,” says Iain Mellis, a cheesemonger of 40 years, with cheese shops bearing his name scattered across Scotland. Before you go "Scotland? Cheese?" keep in mind just how many sheep there are up there. As we enter the season of cheese – and the month during which we will buy (and eat) more cheese than in any other – it is worth debunking some of the more commonly held fictions regarding fromage. Article is from early December, so I guess they're asserting that winter is the season of cheese? I mean, I guess, technically, it was originally created to provide extra food over a long winter, and everyone loves cheese around the winter solstice, but as far as I'm concerned, it is always the season of cheese. Remember, the things mentioned in bold are what this guy considers false. You can cook with cheap cheese “That is a false economy,” says Mellis. “Our cheese might be double the price [of supermarket varieties], but you’ll only need half the quantity.” Blatant ad here, but it's okay because it's about cheese. Right now some of my fellow Americans are thinking about Velveeta or Kraft Singles. Those are cheap, but they are not cheese. Stop it. Pre-grated cheese is fine Grated parmesan, mozzarella or cheddar, for example, are “a terrible addition to your recipes”, says Luca Dusi of the wine and cheese bar Passione Vino in east London. “Once grated, cheese will start oxidising” – meaning it also begins to lose flavour. I don't doubt that, but never underestimate the utter depths of my laziness. Not only is it work to grate cheese, and not only do you then have another utensil to clean afterward, but also there's always that little bit left over, generally covered with blood from where you shredded your fingers instead. The older, the better The “most pernicious myth of all”, according to Dominic Coyte of Borough Cheese Company. “All cheeses have a peak period, during which they are their best, and then they decline. I mean, that should be obvious, if only when taken to extremes. I don't care how excellent the cheese is, anything left of a block of cheese after 100 years is going to be of questionable quality. Yes, I know they've found cheese from longer ago than that. My point stands. And some cheese is simply meant to be enjoyed young. Wrap in clingfilm or keep in an airtight container “Clingfilm is the worst environment for cheese, because it traps the moisture,” says Mellis. The same goes for a plastic container, says Jason Hinds, the director at Neal’s Yard Dairy. Again, don't forget laziness. If I know I'm going to eat the entire block within a week (not a rare occurrence), I'll wrap it in whatever's at hand, which is usually a zipper sandwich bag. You can store it in the fridge door (the space often marked “dairy”) “The fridge is an exceptionally dry environment – and the door is particularly dry,” says Hinds. Ideally, you should avoid the fridge entirely and go for a cellar or larder, says Mellis – but not everyone has that option. If a fridge is your most hygienic choice, Hinds recommends the salad drawer. Which is fine; it's not like I keep salad in there. If it goes mouldy, it’s bad Cheese – good cheese – is a living product. If given a chance, it will develop mould – but that mould is rarely, if ever, bad for you. “Like the rind, it will penetrate in a tiny way and may change the taste of the cheese very slightly,” says Mellis, “but it’s not dangerous.” I mean, sure, for some cheese, mold (American spelling) is the entire point. Stilton, e.g. But I don't care if other cheese is "okay" to eat moldy; it can look disgusting. The temperature of your room is “room temperature” “The biggest mistake you can make is eating cheese straight from the fridge,” says Em Brightman, the head chef at Angela Hartnett’s London restaurant Murano – but it is also worth remembering that “room temperature” in cheese terms “means 14C to 18C. Yes, I speak C, but even the upper end of that range -- 18 -- is entirely too damn cold for me to live in. (It's around 64 in Freedom Units). What they're describing isn't what I would call room temperature, but cellar temperature, also useful for some beer and wine. I keep my house around 23 Commie in the winter, a bit higher in the summer, or else I'm entirely uncomfortable. At those temperatures (mid-70s Freedom), cheese left out indeed starts to sweat, even though I don't. You need specialist cheese knives … “I have a couple of cheese knives, but I don’t put them out,” says Mellis. “I tend to serve cheese with paring knives, which are sharp and small.” The most important thing is that the knife is thin. I mean, sure, if you have 'em, use 'em. If you're on a budget, use whatever else you got. … and a cheese board While lovely to look at, they can leave cheese at the mercy of guests, who might not appreciate the nuances of cutting cheeses or the order in which to eat them. “Be sure to eat your way from the mildest cheese to the strongest in flavour,” advises Brightman. Let's get over the "cutting the cheese" jokes right now: heh. hehhuhheheheh. Okay, with that out of the way, here's my take on this: First of all, having a cheese board or not has nothing to do with what this Brightman person is saying. But here's the thing: your "guests" may be all over the place in terms of cheese knowledge. I certainly can't always identify a cheese by its looks, any more than I can a beer. And people aren't going to learn by, as this article points out, having a lot of rules imposed upon them. In other words, trust your guests and don't restrict them any more than you have to. So they eat cheese out of order; so what? If they do that, they'll figure out the "mild to strong" order quickly enough, just like with beer or wine. Rinds are inedible With the obvious exception of rinds that are made of cloth, wax or plastic, most rinds are edible – even on hard cheeses. “It has its own flavour, and sometimes the best flavours, as the result of mould ripening,” says Hinds. To me, it's not always obvious which rinds are edible and which are not. Usually, but not always. For instance, gouda usually comes wrapped in wax. Some wax is edible. Some isn't. I figure if it looks like it's supposed to be part of the cheese (as with brie), I'll give it a try. Red wine is the best pairing … “The truth is, the tannins in red wine can seriously clash with many cheeses,” says Alan Watson, the head cheesemonger at Funk in London. “I would recommend searching for more sparkling whites and even orange wines.” I have had great luck pairing ordinary white wine with cheese. It depends on the wine, of course. The beauty is not only in the consumption, though, but in the experimentation to find out what works for you. Just as not everyone is going to like every cheese, not everyone is going to be on board with the same wine/cheese pairing. … but beer is a no-go “Beer and cheese were born to go together and share a lot of history,” says Jonny Garrett, the founder of the Craft Beer Channel and the author of A Year in Beer. “For centuries, they were made using local ingredients by women at home. The fact they have always shared the table means they have similar or complementary flavours.” I gotta say, I'd never heard that one shouldn't pair beer with cheese. It is, of course, bullshit. Again, experimentation is key here. I volunteer as tribute. Cheese gives you nightmares Chances are you will have cheese quite late at night at this time of year – and it is eating (and drinking) late that results in poor-quality sleep, which in turn makes you more likely to remember your dreams, rather than an inherent property of cheese. Me, I like remembering my dreams, and sometimes eat before bed to test this theory. Sometimes it works. You can’t eat any cheese if you are lactose intolerant On the contrary, one of the reasons humans developed cheese in the first place was in order to digest the milk of ruminants, argues Ned Palmer, the author of A Cheesemonger’s History of the British Isles and A Cheesemonger’s Compendium of British and Irish Cheese. During the cheesemaking process, bacteria convert the lactose in the milk into lactic acid, which those with lactose intolerance can tolerate. I think this is important to note, so I'm leaving it here. Cheese provides protein, and in a more digestible form than milk. I have a slight lactose intolerance, myself, so I don't drink milk, but I'll eat the hell out of cheese. Just slice any way you like No. While you don’t need a set of designated cheese knives, you do need an array of sharp knives, in order to avoid getting blue cheese on other cheeses or vice versa. The biggest faux pas in fromage is cutting the nose off a cheese, rather than slicing it lengthways – not for reasons of etiquette, but because “the cheese tastes differently from the centre to the outside,” says Hinds. Again, are we just going to tell everyone what to do? Maybe some people like it that way. This can, of course, lead to conflict among you and the guests at your cheese party, however. So I hope you enjoyed learning about Our Lord Cheeses today. I certainly did. And now I think I have part of a block of Swiss wrapped in a sandwich bag in my dairy door; I'mma go eat that sucker. With beer. |
There's a bunch of new prompts up over at "JAFBG"  [XGC]. I haven't decided whether to do any of them or not. I spent all of January doing those, and I ended up spamming the forum. I want to give other people a chance there. Besides, I still have a long list of articles to share.This is one of them, and you might think it would have been more appropriate for last month, but I say it's appropriate at any time. The final human Moon landing took place in December of 1972 - nearly 50 years ago. We (by which I mean the world, not the US or NASA) have sent robots there since then, but humans have been relegated to Low Earth Orbit -- space stations and the like. Every single person -- 12 in total -- who has walked on the Moon has been a white male American. But since then, there has been a bit more diversity in space. On August 30, 1983, Guion (better known as Guy) Bluford was a crew member aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger when it launched from Kennedy Space Station on its third mission, making Bluford the first Black astronaut to fly to space. Here he reflects on the importance of that achievement, the role he filled, and the advice he gives to young people seeking to make their way in the world. I'm not going to copy pieces of the interview here; that's what the link is for. I'll just say that they're still talking about going back to the Moon, something Bluford, along with everyone else who flew after the end of 1972, wasn't able to do. As I understand it, it's not going to look quite so monochrome next time. In an ideal world, things like ethnicity and gender wouldn't be such a big deal, but we don't live in an ideal world. Members of groups that have historically been passed over should have the same opportunities, and sometimes that means deliberately seeking out such people. After all, space belongs to all of us. |
| Been a while since I made words about words. From respair to cacklefart – the joy of reclaiming long-lost positive words We have been bombarded with negativity recently; but the English language is a treasure trove of joyous vocabulary While I want negative words as well, these will do for now. “Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them”: words of positivity from the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. Easy to be positive when you're an emperor, I suppose. As long as you're not dodging assassins. In recent times I’ve made it a mission to highlight a category of English that linguists fondly call “orphaned negatives”. These are the words that inexplicably lost their mojo at some point in the past, becoming a sorry crew of adjectives that includes unkempt, unruly, disgruntled, unwieldy and inept. Yet previous generations had the potential to be kempt, ruly, wieldy, ept and – most recently thanks to PG Wodehouse – gruntled. Some were even full of ruth (compassion), feck (initiative) and gorm (due care and attention). Well, that explains a few things from previous entries. It’s not just these negatives that have been lost. The German schadenfreude – pleasure in the misfortunes of others – is now all too familiar. But how many of us know its near opposite in English, “confelicity”, which is joy in another person’s happiness? Not me. I'll probably forget that word as soon as I'm done with this entry. But if we are pessimists at heart, it has never stopped us having a laugh. I mean, sure, that's pretty much my entire brand. That and science. And drinking. Some of our happiest words are such because they make us smile, and often involve a bit of fun at our own expense. Who can resist such nicknames as “cacklefarts” for eggs, or “bags of mystery” for sausages (because you never quite know what’s in them)? Even the prudish Victorians knew hankies as “snottingers”, and umbrellas as “bumbershoots”. The Victorians weren't nearly as prudish as they're made out to be.Also, I'd never heard of "cacklefart," which is, obviously, a fine word. I've been known to call eggs "cackleberries." And milk becomes "moo juice." I get my groceries delivered now, because I'm lazy (been doing it since before anyone had heard of COVID), and before that I made grocery lists on a note app on my phone. But before that , I'd use the traditional ink on paper. One time, I'd written a grocery list that included cackleberries, moo juice, chick tits (what else are you going to call chicken breasts?), and a few other twisted inventions of my own. By the time I got my groceries to the car, though, I realized that I'd dropped my grocery list somewhere. I can only imagine the look of shock and/or horror on the face of whoever found that thing and read it. And then I laugh. See? I can experience joy. The fact that "cackleberries" is a longer word than "eggs" and thus takes more time to write out is immaterial. It’s true too that other languages dish out positivity a little better than us. They have a splash of what the Italians call sprezzatura, a careless, thrown together nonchalance or indifference to life’s curveballs. As for joy, it would be hard to beat gigil from the Philippines. In a single word it conveys the “irresistible desire to squeeze something cute”. That concept just gave me diabetes. But one English word surely stands above all others from the corners of the dictionary. I mention it all the time, because I’m determined to bring it back. Or bring it anywhere in fact, for it never really enjoyed more than a day in the sun. “Respair” has just one record next to it in the Oxford English Dictionary, from 1525, but its definition is sublime. Respair is fresh hope; a recovery from despair. ...nah. |
| Today, I'm going to talk about politics. By "talk about politics," I mean that I'm actually talking about talking about politics -- I'm not here to start arguments or promote my own point of view (though I can't promise I'll be entirely impartial). Political polarization, or the “violence of faction” James Madison warned of in Federalist 10, is as great a threat to democracy today as it was in 1787, dividing voters and their representatives into diametrically opposed camps that are unwilling to compromise or yield power to their opponents. At some point, it becomes tribal. I've seen people treat politics like they do football, as if it's a spectator sport. The January 6th insurrection on Capitol Hill over one year ago, and the United States’ ongoing struggle to respond effectively to threats such as the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change, warn us of the dangers posed by unchecked polarization. As writers know better than anyone, words have power. Though I agree with the sentiment here, I feel obligated to, in fairness, point out that calling the events of 1/6/21 an "insurrection" already gives away at least some of the authors' bias. The other side is trying to frame it as a "protest." One could also call it a "riot," or a "coup attempt," or "trespassing." Also, at this point, even acknowledging that the pandemic is a "threat" (or, in some cases, even exists at all), and asserting that climate change is a) real and b) a problem (let alone whether it's anthropogenic) also results in pushback from the other side. Given that level of extreme polarization, where some people ignore the existence of certain facts, what hope do we really have? Well, I have the hope that the article will shed some light on that. Our contribution, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, identifies three key mechanisms for avoiding polarization: (1) increasing tolerance, the range of opinions that individuals find attractive; (2) limiting the radicalizing influence of repulsive extremists; and (3) incentivizing non-extremist policies that align with individuals’ self-interests. So they're stating their findings up front. Good. The rest is commentary, but important commentary. We also find that external shocks—such as wars, economic crises, or climate disasters—can consolidate individuals’ opinions into less polarized distributions, but only if they are very strong or if they occur before patterns of extreme polarization have set in. I should note that this article was published before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which seems to have promoted at least a little bit of bipartisan cooperation here. Low tolerance among actors causes flurries of repulsive interactions and the rapid onset of extreme polarization, while moderate to high tolerance does the opposite. How, then, do we foster greater tolerance to dissimilar and opposing points of view? I still don't see how this can happen the way things are now. And some things simply should not be tolerated -- for example, if group A has the stated objective of killing or enslaving group B, I can't see there being any middle ground. We need look no further than Twitter to see how exposure to a wide range of ideologies does not necessarily increase tolerance; on the contrary, social media interactions often reinforce deep divisions. This is one reason I avoid Twatter. As the saying goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Yeah, that worked out well when the US and USSR were both opposing Nazi Germany in WWII. Is polarization mitigated—even temporarily—in the face of external shocks such as war, climate disasters, or economic crises? According to our model, it depends. Of course it does. Our research highlights the importance of fostering tolerance beyond just exposing people to new ideas. Interventions that focus on empathy and connection, like storytelling, may succeed in bridging ideological gaps where others have caused repulsive backlash. Naturally, I don't have anything against storytelling per se. But, again, these days, if you tell a true story about someone's experience, the other side is just as likely to mock it and call it fake news as they are to simply dismiss it. As an example, many, many stories have been told about people who refused to get vaccinated against the 'rona, then got sick and wished they'd gotten the vaccine, then died. This doesn't move some people, whose lived experience is people who got sick and then (to some degree) recovered. As further examples, consider all the people who sincerely believe that a certain school shooting was faked with crisis actors, or who screech about how if someone on their side did something heinous, they must have been acting on behalf of the other tribe to make them look bad. In other words, I think storytelling only works when it aligns with peoples' preconceived ideas. But I'm not a researcher; these authors are. And then there's the thing I've mentioned in here before: that a person's lived experience is relatively useless for making informed decisions. Those rely on statistical analysis, not things like "Well, my uncle wasn't wearing his seat belt and survived the crash." But people in general don't understand statistics, or they think someone's manipulating the numbers to lie to them (to be fair, this has happened), and they don't understand the concept of risk. "You can get in a car accident even if you haven't been drinking!" Yes, this is true, but that doesn't change the fact that drinking increases the chance of an accident. With the 2022 midterm elections on the horizon, it is critical that candidates and the media resist the poison of extremism rather than attempting to gain from it. Yeah... that's not going to happen. Extremism is interesting. It gets views. Whether you agree with the extremists' point of view or not, you're watching the train wreck. News outlets cater to that, on all sides. So, really, I'd suggest reading the whole article; there's a lot more here that I didn't cover. To sum up my thoughts on it, though, I'd have to say that it doesn't matter how much science you do when a) there's a group of people who reject the very idea of science and b) no matter how much you tell people what to do to change, they won't, because they simply won't be told what to do by anyone not of their tribe. |
| A Cracked link today, talking about men, which is odd because its readership demographic is 12-year-old kids... at heart, at least. "What brains?" women who think they're funny are thinking right now. It feels like journalists and YouTubers are legally obligated to talk about how masculinity is in crisis. Funny, this is the first I've heard of the subject in a while. Traditional manhood is supposedly going the way of the dodo, and yet at the same time there’s a huge industry offering me everything from jewelry to body washes that will keep my manliness intact amid my gender’s death throes. Pro tip: jewelry and body washes are incompatible with "traditional manhood." Unless you count my body wash, which is also a shampoo, conditioner, salad dressing, cake icing, and engine lube. 5. The Manliness Industry Has Become Stupidly Huge Cue "stupidly huge" jokes here. Products have targeted men for as long as advertising’s existed. In the '20s, deodorant ads told women it was a necessity but only informed men it was an option, because not smelling like a flop house could be seen as “feminine” and “sissified.” Making yogurt and grooming products look manly was important in getting men to buy them at all. Somewhere in ancient Ur, a market stall owner probably told some gangly dork that he’d look tougher with a leather bracelet. Honestly, I never thought much about it. I always figured that the "for men" products were labeled as such due to different biology, not sociological principles. Which means I've probably been suckered in. 4. That Industry Promotes A Very Specific Worldview The good people at Active Doodie say you need one of their diaper bags because holding a normal one will be even more humiliating than holding your wife’s purse. Huh, and here I thought "real men" made the wimminfolk do all the diaper changing and stuff. Oh, and can we find the person responsible for naming that company and remove him (it was almost certainly a "him") from society? America has a proud tradition of reducing politics to asinine vagaries crammed onto t-shirts, but these companies are all pitching a very specific and isolating vision of masculinity. Nine Line decries that “patriotism and national pride is disappearing daily” and say they want to reverse that trend, but half their product descriptions are about how the “woke” are turning America into an irredeemable hellhole. I know who's turning America into an irredeemable hellhole, and it's not the "woke." It's the people peddling this toxic masculinity bullshit. And people who shoot video in vertical format. Not coincidentally, there’s a whole media ecosystem warning that modern manhood is vanishing. PragerU warns that men aren’t allowed to be masculine anymore, and thus no longer “defend, protect, or provide.” Right, because that's all men are good for. That and getting things down from the top shelf. Which I guess is part of "provide." 3. The Modern View Of Masculinity Is An Aberration I was hoping they'd acknowledge this. Hey, maybe all those videos have a point. Look how this typical soy boy talks to his “male” friend, writing girly crap like “You know my desire to befriend you is everlasting” and “I do not feel my own sorrows much more keenly than I do yours” before signing off “Yours forever.” Why not just have a couple of appletinis and cry about your menstrual cycles? Those are excerpts from letters by noted wimp Abraham Lincoln to his good friend Joshua Speed. And I mean good friend; they shared their deepest anxieties with each other, while also sharing a bed for four years. But no, nowadays any expression of platonic affection between males is smirkingly called a "bromance." I hate that word and want it to die. Flowery language, inspired by the heroic bromances of classical literature, was common. Goddammit, Cracked. But dudes who invoke Sparta’s cool quotes about not having their weapons taken away probably aren’t planning to reclaim their habitual pederasty, lengthy stretches of communal living, total subservience to the state, long braided hair, progressive (for the time) attitude towards women, or the time they surrendered and whined about the enemy’s use of arrows. The more I hear about the past, the more I'm glad I live in the present. But we can still learn from it. Masculinity isn’t a series of boxes to check that were handed down by nature. It’s always varied by time and place, and you can only “reclaim” it in the same sense that you can reclaim bell bottoms. Now, those were the true aberrations. 2. Our Narrow, Modern View Of Manliness Is Taking Us To Strange Places As the pro-gun diaper bags implied, Americans are increasingly told that being a good man means believing that a significant number of other men are waiting for their chance to murder you. Oh, be fair. Lots of women want to murder you, too. But … why? A majority of Americans have, for decades, believed that crime rates are rising. And, for decades, they’ve been wrong. Media and politicians mislead us about how dangerous America is, petty crimes like vandalism lead to the mistaken assumption that serious crimes are also rampant, a high-profile crime across the country can convince us that we’re next, and all while the actual statistics keep improving. America’s no paradise, but it’s safer than it’s ever been and we act like we’re about to erupt into Civil War 2: This Time We’re Angry About Pronouns. To be fair again, a civil war is definitely imminent. The signs are all there (mostly they look like confederate flags because we learn nothing). 1. And So Men Are Now Lonely, Isolated, And Scared But they can't admit that, because that would be unmanly. Between 2019 and 2021 the U.S. Concealed Carry Association, which teaches self-defense and trauma care, saw its membership jump from 300,000 to 600,000. Their success came from their focus on family protection. The USCCA is far less combative than the NRA, and they emphasize that part of being safe is avoiding fighting. You know, I think I've managed to avoid talking about guns in here for all this time, though I don't remember for sure. What I have mentioned is that I spent my childhood on a farm. A gun, out in the country, is a tool, like an axe or a tractor, that provides some sort of benefit while also being dangerous. So I'm not anti-gun, but I don't worship them either. So America is more armed than ever, yet it’s supposedly suffering a manliness nadir. Ironically, the 1950s that are idealized as a peak in American manhood thought they were suffering from a testosterone crisis, because soldiers came home and had to learn how to move on and become family men. Now family men supposedly need to become lone warriors in case radicals seize the local Steak 'n Shake. Again, we’ve been reframing and arguing about manhood forever. I think one of the biggest issues is conflating "gender" with "how you have to act." There was a book out, I think back in the 80s, called "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche." I never read it. Perhaps it was satire; I don't know. But real men -- real people -- do whatever the hell they want so long as it doesn't infringe on others' rights. So if we’re going to cherry pick from yesteryear’s men, hell, let’s pick the part where men went out and tried to make the world a better place. Meh. There are people out there. Shudder. I'd rather sit at home and try to make the world a better place. |
| This is not my usual kind of link, but a friend sent it to me and I figured, why not branch out a bit? Let's leave aside for the moment that this is the first time I've ever heard of, or seen a picture of, this Kat Von D person. I have no idea who she is, what she's done (if anything), or why I should care. And don't be telling me I'm out of touch, either. Obviously, from the title, the article is photo-heavy, so you'll have to click on the link to get the full effect. Warning: face tattoo (which immediately lowers my opinion of the subject to its lowest possible level; so sue me). Kat Von D announced in October that she'd be selling her famous Los Angeles mansion and moving to Indiana. So what? Also, it can't be that famous, as this is the first I've heard of it. Von D has lived in California for years, including when she starred on "LA Ink." I guess that's some sort of "reality" show about tattoos? Which would explain the disfigurement of her face, I suppose. I'd never heard of the show until reading this article. She had previously said that she wanted to move out of California as a result of "terrible policies, tyrannical government overreach, ridiculous taxing," and "so much more corruption." I don't claim to be an expert on California no matter how many times I've visited, but I suspect that the general response of most Californians would be "Well... bye." With maybe a "Bye Felicia" thrown in every now and then, though that wouldn't be true to the sense of the original quote, which was about dismissing someone who didn't want to leave. I can't argue about the taxation, though anyone with a $15M house is going to face property taxes pretty much anywhere. And I know enough about Indiana that I know they have their own brands of "terrible policies" and "tyrannical government overreach;" it's just that they come from a different majority party, and Indiana's presumably suit her better. Indiana is basically the South's giant middle finger, flipping the rest of us off. "We just felt the need to plant roots in a small town where there is nature, where my son can be free to play, and where we can eventually retire one day," she wrote in a December 2020 Instagram comment. Okay, so this is year-old news. That's never stopped me before. Anyway, the concept of retiring to Indiana would never occur to me, and I was born there. The Victorian home has a gothic aesthetic thanks to Von D's renovations. (This is where you really need to look at the pictures.) I gotta be fair, here: I really, really like the look of that house. The exterior, anyway; the interior is far too baroque (I think that's the word for that aesthetic) for my tastes. Of course, given its price and location, I wouldn't buy it either way (I like visiting CA, though I wouldn't want to live there). But like going through an art museum, it doesn't hurt to look and have an opinion. The Victorian home was built in 1896 by Isaac Newton Van Nuys and was later featured in the 2003 film "Cheaper by the Dozen." Which I never saw. If I were in a better mood, I could check to see if this is the same Van Nuys that has a street named after him. But I'm not in a good mood. The three-story home is on a 27,000-square-foot lot. For the math-challenged, that's a bit more than 3/5 of an acre. I'm entirely too hung over to convert it to square meters or hectares, though. The property has 11 bedrooms, 8 1/2 bathrooms, and a massive pool, among other features. Why? Also, pools are nice, but I could never have one; I can't be arsed to do maintenance on it. Though I suppose if you're going to buy a mansion in L.A. (the article doesn't seem to specify which part, or even if it's technically L.A., but it's presumably in a place like Beverly Hills and not Sherman Oaks), you probably have enough wealth to hire someone to do it for you. In general, I don't like "If you have enough money to buy x then you can afford y" arguments, because they're specious, but in this case it seems reasonable. Let me expand upon that, here, as an aside. I think I have a different attitude toward money than most. I figure if you can't pay cash for something (other than maybe a house), then you really can't afford it. Yes, I know most people have car loans, too; my point, however, remains. So let's pretend I want to buy a new Porsche (I don't). And I say, "I really want to buy a Porsche, but the insurance is too much." You might be tempted to think, "If you have enough money to buy a Porsche, you can afford the insurance." Well, no; in this case, I've spent my entire car budget on the Porsche. Say, I don't know, $100,000 (again, this is purely hypothetical). I don't know how much they actually cost, but whatever. That means that (in this fantasy), I have $100,000 earmarked for purchasing a Porsche -- no more. Insurance is a monthly (or yearly) expense, coming from a different budget item. Being able to afford one doesn't mean I'm able to afford the other. It also leads to infinite regression. If you have enough to buy a Porsche, then you can afford the insurance. If you have enough for all that, you can afford to hire a driver. If you have the money for the car, insurance, and a driver, then you can afford to have it repainted every year. And so on. At some point, it becomes absurd. Anyway. Point is, in this case, anyone buying a home in (presumably) Beverly Hills has to be able to pay, not just for the house, but for all the stuff that comes with it: gardening, maintenance, pool stuff (and don't get me started about the profligacy of using all that water in a goddamned desert), etc. Inside, there are multiple places to relax — including a grand lounge. And this is where they lose me. Like I said, I really like the exterior. And that's where my appreciation ends. Now, I could take this opportunity to note that there are houses like this in the L.A. area -- you know there are even more expensive ones -- and yet, as I was riding through that city the other day, I couldn't even count the extraordinarily large number of homeless encampments. I could, but what good would it do, apart from virtue signaling? No one's going to give their mansion to the homeless, and even if they did, the neighbors would freak right out (actually, I would love to see that). But no, instead I'll point out that the same state that she claims to hate so much is the one that presumably enabled her to buy and upgrade such a mansion in the first place. And from what little I know of Indiana, that sort of conspicuous display of wealth won't be nearly as tolerated there. Also, and I mean this with all sincerity, fuck the "art" on the wall of the "formal living room." But when it comes to the bedrooms, Von D went all out. One has a subtle black-and-gold design. "Subtle?" Of all the adjectives that could be used to describe this interior, that one's not even on the same planet. There's also a bedroom that makes you feel as though you've been transported to another world. Another one besides the actual world, and the world the rest of this house's interior lives in. So... yeah, go look at the pictures. You might have an entirely different opinion of the decor, and that's fine, but you can still gawk at the excess. |
| "That's the problem with nature. Something's always stinging you or oozing mucus on you. Let's go watch TV." -Calvin I could quibble about the definition and connotation of "nature." We are absolutely a part of nature, and thus the things we construct are also a part of the natural world. Is a beaver dam unnatural? A termite mound? A bird's nest? Just because it's built by an ape doesn't mean it's not part of nature. And some things that we humans create can be as beautiful or terrifying as a wilderness untouched by hands with opposable thumbs. But, okay, fine, I'll take for the sake of argument the stance that anything created by humans is "artificial" and anything else, including artifacts created by other animals, is "natural." As an aside, though, let's try to remember that "natural" isn't always "beneficial." My cigars contain all-natural ingredients. Poison ivy is natural. Most viruses are natural. And so on. Many of us invest hours each day staring at the screens of our televisions and computers and smartphones. Seldom do we go outside on a clear night, away from the lights of the city, and gaze at the dark starry sky, or take walks in the woods unaccompanied by our digital devices. I like computers and smartphones. TV, not so much, because of the interminable stupid ads. Those get my ire up way more than being in a fluorescent-lit cubicle ever did. Most of the minutes and hours of each day we spend in temperature-controlled structures of wood, concrete, and steel. Goddamn right I do. Okay, so I do like to sit on my deck with the trees around. Yesterday I saw a whole flock of deer cross the yard. But in the past, I've been perfectly content to sit inside, and also always when it's cold. It's cold a lot. Give me temperature control. We developed technology for a reason, and that reason is to be fucking comfortable. We have created a natureless world. That's a matter of opinion and perspective. Like I said above, my painted drywall is no less "natural" than a tree, as it was created and installed by natural creatures. It was not always this way. For more than 99 percent of our history as humans, we lived close to nature. We lived in the open. Yes, and we had the brains to stop doing that shit. Not all early humans were "cavepeople," but what's the real difference between a cave and a house, except most houses at least have windows you can look out of? Over the large majority of our 2-million-year evolutionary history, Darwinian forces molded our brains to find kinship with nature, what the biologist E. O. Wilson called “biophilia.” I think that's misleading. "Darwinian forces" (COME ON) molded our brains to be able to make tools, then tools to make other tools, then tools to construct all the wonderful and terrible things we've built over the millennia. In other words, if [deity] had not intended humans to fly, [pronoun] wouldn't have given us the ability to build airplanes. But okay, fine, perhaps we sometimes go too far with it. In 2004, the social psychologists Stephan Mayer and Cindy McPherson Frantz, at Oberlin College, developed something called the “connectedness to nature scale” (CNS), a set of statements that could be used to determine a person’s degree of affinity for nature... Some of the statements of the CNS test are: And you're damn right I'm going to comment on said statements. I often feel a sense of oneness with the natural world around me. I feel a sense of oneness with my laptop and smartphone. I think of the natural world as a community to which I belong. I think of the natural world as including the things we've built. When I think of my life, I imagine myself to be part of a larger cyclical process of living. Well, okay, I can't argue with that one. I feel as though I belong to the Earth as equally as it belongs to me. Oh... if only the Earth belonged to me. There'd be some changes, lemme tellya. I feel that all inhabitants of Earth, human and nonhuman, share a common “life force.” There is a light side, and a dark side, and it binds the universe together. I mean, again, COME ON. In the more frenzied and tech-heavy times of today, we require more effort to creep out of our close and crowded houses. But the poet Mary Oliver succeeded. In her 1972 poem “Sleeping in the Forest,” Oliver writes that she “slept as never before, a stone / on the riverbed, nothing between me and the white fire of stars / but my thoughts, and they floated / light as moths among the branches / of the perfect trees … By morning / I had vanished at least a dozen times / into something better.” Yeah, I've slept outside, too. Or, rather, tried to. It was cold. The ground was hard. Shit crawled on me. The next morning, I had a massive headache. Don't get me wrong: I appreciate what we're calling "nature" here. I just prefer to appreciate it from a nice warm room. My most intense experience with nature occurred a number of years ago on a small island in Maine. A family of ospreys lived near our house on the island... That's nice. Usually nature's birds just naturally deposit their shit upon me. But I do think that we need to be more mindful of what this technology has cost us and the vital importance of direct experiences with nature. And by “cost,” I mean what Henry David Thoreau meant in Walden: “The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” Anytime someone tries to convince me of something by quoting Thoreau, I become convinced of the opposite. In summary, it's as if we've built ourselves a splendid mansion, and now you want us to go live in the mud. No, thanks. Oh, sure, in small doses, I agree: "nature" can be beautiful. But I think a lot of the problems supposedly caused by "artificial" surroundings are due to other concerns: when you're in that fluorescent-lit office, for example, you're generally focused on work, which can be stressful, but when you're walking in the forest (unless you're a lumberjack), you're not thinking about work. Other people have other priorities, of course. But as for me, out here sitting on my deck because it's the first midnight in a long while that hasn't been freezing cold (which I define as anything under about 55F), I'm perfectly happy to have my electric patio heater plugged in and keeping me warm while still technically being "outdoors." |
| Well, I did promise "posts of substance;" this came up at random, and it qualifies -- though there's not much for me to say about it. It could be argued that anyone with enough arrogance (however well they might hide it) to run for office is usually going to be evil, even discounting that what one tribe considers good, the other considers evil. Oh, sure, you can find counterexamples if you think for a few minutes, but the exceptions don't change the generality. So choosing between the lesser of two evils is almost always a given. Except, of course, if there's more than two people running, and then it's the least of n evils. As the common adage goes, politics is about addition, not subtraction. As I have never heard that (insofar as I can remember), I already know I'm probably over my head in this article. Political addition is the foundation of a healthy democracy, but unfortunately, our current political system leaves many citizens out of the equation. The structure of elections, especially party primaries, contributes to this disparity. Won't argue with that. Exacerbating the situation is the fact that more than 80 percent of congressional districts are completely safe for one party. That's 'cause they're desigerrymandered to be that way. Anyway, the article spends a few paragraphs explaining the situation better than I ever could. But is there a simple way to change the party primary system to foster more citizen engagement and more choice, without favoring one party over another? I'm guessing they're going to say "yes." An innovative idea that fits that bill is Final-Five Voting, put forth by the Institute for Political Innovation. I must be psychic. Final-Five Voting — this specific combination of top-five primaries and instant runoff-voting general elections — would have a powerful, positive impact on our system. Rather than forcing voters to choose the “lesser of two evils,” we’d infuse healthy competition into politics and help to ensure that candidates are more responsive and accountable to all the voters of the state or district they seek to represent. In the Before Time, when I still had a gym membership, I'd alleviate the incredible boredom of being on an elliptical machine by watching lectures about shit like science, philosophy, and mathematics. This is where you're tempted to comment, "But wouldn't that make it even more boring?" Well, no; not for me. Anyway. I wish I could remember the program I was watching or even the slightest hint of the proof they used, but one lecturer made a convincing argument that there is not only no such thing as the perfect system for choosing leaders, but that there can never be the perfect system for choosing leaders. There will always be a downside, a certain level of unfairness. But just because it is mathematically impossible to implement perfection -- which is usually the case in everything, not just elections -- doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to make something better. As they say, "the perfect is the enemy of the good." If you resist change because the new system won't be perfect, there will never be change. Of course, a lot of people want exactly that. The American system of representative democracy is in dire need of constructive reform that increases participation and avoids tipping the scales toward one party or another. I'm not sure this particular essay has convinced me that this solution is the best of all proposed electoral reforms, but I hadn't heard this one before, so it was worth it to read. I do believe it would be better than our current system in the US. Of course, it would dilute the power of the only people in the position to implement such a system, which means it'll never happen. It's akin to Congress voting to take a 50% pay cut, which of course is unthinkable. But it's good to indulge in fantasy every now and then. |
| Really brief entry today, because I'm playing a lot of catch-up here after coming back from my trip. The flights back were, remarkably, both on time and not too uncomfortable, and they didn't even lose my luggage. Something is definitely off with the universe. The downside is that this gives me nothing to rant about, which makes blogging more challenging. So, what am I supposed to do, rant about having nothing to complain about? Paradox! Tomorrow, very likely, I'll resume midnight posts of more substance, but for today, like I said, just catching up on bills and cat maintenance. And, of course, trying to once again get used to the colder winter days here in Virginia. I don't miss the smog, but damn, the weather was nice in L.A. |
| I realized after the fact that I wasn't as clear as I could have been with yesterday's entry. I can't even blame being drunk. But I was tired. Anyway, point is, I did indeed spend a few hours on Catalina Island on Tuesday. It's a pain in the ass to get there and back, but the boat ride was relaxing and Avalon, the main town there, has some cool little tourist-trappy shops. I can blame a lot of yesterday on being drunk, though. While I stayed firmly on the mainland, the day started to go uphill with lunch, which consisted of sushi and a really quite amazingly large quantity of sake. After visiting several purveyors of fine malt beverage subsequent to that, the final one being within half a mile of my hotel, I ended up stumbling back and passing out. Today, my plane leaves in a few hours, and I doubt I'll be on here for the rest of the day. So I wanted to get my blog entry in to keep my streak going, even though I don't have much to talk about except how generally awesome the breweries in the L.A. area are, and to publicly thank Annette  for being my local guide for these last few days.After this, we'll return to our regularly scheduled programming. |
| As I've noted before, I have the utterly unattainable goal of visiting every brewery in the US (and a few elsewhere for good measure). It's unattainable because those things open and shut down on a weekly basis. By the time you've hit a hundred on your list, some of the ones on the list will have gone out of business, and more will open up behind you. But that doesn't stop me from trying; everyone needs a hobby. Some breweries are easier to get to than others. There was, for example, one on a military base in New York; I haven't checked to see if it's still there, but it's not always easy for civilians to get access to those bases. And there's one on Catalina, that island you see on the map just off the coast of L.A. As far as I can tell, there are only three ways to get there: 1) Helicopter; 2) Boat; 3) Swim 35 miles. (3) is right out, and (1) is probably expensive. (2) takes an inordinate amount of time, but doesn't cost a couple of limbs. By "time," I mean that from where I am it takes 1/2 - 1 hour (L.A. traffic, you know) to get to the dock, which you're supposed to get to an hour early, and then the crossing time is a bit over an hour also. So that's potentially somewhat more than three hours there and the same going back. Just for one brewery that only has two of its own beers. But hey, at least I can cross that one off my list. If another opens up on the island, though, I'll utter a few choice words. (Yes, the title of this entry is an intentional pun.) |
| Still in California for the next couple of days. No more observatories to visit yesterday, but at least there were breweries. One well-known feature of the L.A. area is landslides. We took a drive around a place that's known for its landslides, marveling at all the doomed houses all built to appreciate a view of the ocean. I'm thinking a lot of them will get a much closer view of the ocean at some point. Oh, and did I mention there's also a fault line involved? Fun! I've got a pretty tight schedule today so this entry's not going to be as substantial as usual, but as I wanted to get something in, here's a bit about where I'm hoping I can manage to get to today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Catalina_Island_(California) |
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